First stop on the tour was the bridge viewing stand. We had come into the city via the bridge so it was sort of anti-climactic, but it's obvious that the Hong Kongese are masters at bridge building. We were disappointed, however, not to be able to see the great Hong Kong to Macau bridge set to open in November. When it opens, it will be the longest bridge in the world at 34 miles. Wowsers.
Our next stop was the Po Lin Monastery. In the 1900s, the previous head monk decided to raise money to build a "Big Buddha" to sit atop one of the mountains. The monks raised money for decades before having enough to build it, and it opened in 1993. Since that time, the monastery has become a major tourist attraction and the incoming money helped to build a second larger monastery (quite glitzy) including the Hall of 10,000 Buddhas, all gilded. The decor inside and out is quite beautiful, but it's clearly all just for money even though there were several pilgrims who were obviously moved by being at the monastery. The monk population has dropped to only 28 monks at this point, but because of the Big Buddha and the two gilded halls, several Buddhist monks from all over the world come to visit. We saw none however. We did see a lot of glitz though.
One of the highlights of the visit was an all-vegetarian meal in their restaurant. It was very good, better than what we had at the Jumbo Floating Restaurant the night before in Hong Kong.
Our next stop was the fishing village of Tai O. It was wonderful to be able to see more rural aspects of the area as opposed to the big city aspects of Hong Kong. The population of this village has decreased dramatically (it is now about 1200 people) because the area has been overfished and commercial fishing is no longer allowed. Some of the old fishermen go out fishing daily, but only to catch fish for their family to eat. All the young people leave the village for opportunities in the city because fishing is the only thing available to do there; thus, the population of the village is all old people.
The houses in the village are built on stilts and all the streets are waterways, including little bridges from one section to another. Apparently, the government has built an apartment complex for the residents of the village, but residents, according to our guide, only keep valuables there for safety during typhoons, and prefer to live in their little huts in their community. There is also a market street (walkable) which seemed to be thriving with little shops lining the street on either side. Harold and I both immensely enjoyed this part of the day.
We headed back to Hong Kong from the island of Lantau which is not very populated and is quite hilly and forested, and it also has some great beaches. The airport was built on Lantau, so the bridge we viewed at our first stop was an important addition for ease of travel from the airport to the city of Hong Kong.
Once we returned to the hotel, we had a couple of glasses of wine at the hotel, a light dinner, and we crashed early. The heat and humidity does, indeed, drain a person.
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